What it does
Claude Scholar is a set of skills, agents and commands that you add to AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, Kimi Code CLI or OpenCode. It focuses on academic research, especially in computer science and AI.
It helps with coming up with ideas, organising and summarising papers, running and analysing experiments, writing, responding to reviewers and getting work published. It can connect to Zotero for references and Obsidian for notes.
Its makers stress that it is not meant to replace the researcher. People make the key decisions while the assistant speeds up repetitive work.
Who it's for
Researchers and graduate students who already use an AI coding assistant.
Can I use it without coding?
With some setup. You install it into an AI coding tool, which runs in a terminal. New to this? Start here.
Can I run it?
- Cost
- Free, but needs an AI accountThe software is free, but it uses an online AI service (like OpenAI or Anthropic), which usually charges for use.
- Computer
- An ordinary computer is fine
- Privacy
- Sends what you give it to an online service
- API key
- Not needed
Try it
- Install it in full, minimal or selective mode, following the README's quick start.
- Try one of the getting-started scenarios, such as importing papers into Zotero for review.
Using Claude Code, Cursor or another AI coding assistant? Paste the prompt and it will walk you through the setup.New to this?
Before you install
- Only download from the official GitHub page. Copies with similar names exist for many popular projects.
- License (MIT): Very permissive: free to use, change and share, including for business.
- What you type or upload is sent to an online service. Avoid sharing private or sensitive information.
- More on staying safe